SEO Adelaide: Have You Noticed a Drop In Your Google Rank?

SEO Adelaide

As hard as this is to admit, over the past several month’s Baker Marketing has lost position in Google Rank!

This had us concerned for a minute or two!

After looking into Google Analytics and website traffic data, we realised that this wasn’t affecting us as much as it should. Our lead generation and sales conversion metrics remained unchanged.

No, we are not exceptionally lucky on this front. But we did have a content plan in place that didn’t focus only on having keywords rank high in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). Our site also contained authority. Our website is seen to provide educational and valuable information to readers.

How SEO Adelaide Has Changed

We have all read countless articles and blogs over the last 10-years about Google or Facebook algorithm changes. Some changes we understand and some we don’t!

Even with all this information and knowledge available to us on a daily basis, the way businesses create content has not changed enough.

In the early 2000’s if you were looking for internet marketing strategists for your business, it wouldn’t be strange to Google the phrase “digital marketing strategy Adelaide”. But, longer more conversational search queries are becoming more and more normal in 2018. Today a search for marketing services may look like this “find the best strategic marketing agency near me.”

There is a world of difference between those two searches. The first search is likely to provide you with educational information on marketing strategy. Whereas the second will pick up the intent of your search and provide you with relevant options to consider. This is all thanks to machine learning. Google understands us as human beings more in 2018 – thanks to the algorithms of Hummingbird and RankBrain.

Which leads to the question – how do I get my content to rank well? Many, if not all small to mid-sized businesses could not create enough content to cover all the different variations of a keyword that people search for. Even if you tried for years, the amount of content that you would have to create is astonishing. Which is where a content strategy that involves Pillar Pages and Topic Clusters come in handy.

By creating a wealth of information on one focussed topic, you gain more authority with search engines. This authority directly impacts how educational and valuable Google thinks your content is. The more educational and valuable your content is deemed to be, the higher in search results you will appear.

It is time to change your content strategy to fight against the ranking myth.

Having a content strategy that focuses on topics and clusters of information will allow you to rank for your chosen keyword, short and long tail. As well as hundreds of other related keywords that you have used in other linked relevant content. Because your site is deemed to be an authority on the content topics you create.

How Do You Create Content That is SEO Adelaide Friendly?

For all businesses, content is an essential piece of the digital marketing strategy. So need to to make sure that your content is performing the way it should be and the way you want it to.

The first step in optimising your content for the new era of search is to conduct a content audit. Moz has a great detailed guide to help you through this process.

The way people search for information has changed, which means that we as content creators need to change the way we write and organise our content.

64% of searches use four or more words in 2018. The questions that we are asking Google are becoming more specific, and conversational.

Answering conversational queries help your target audience find the information they want. Instead of presenting them with a list of information that might help them.

As you can imagine SEO Adelaide has been affected significantly due to technological advancements. Technology like Siri and Google assistant, and more recently Amazon Echo and Google Home devices, have increased the number of voice searches that are conducted.

We know that Google prefers quality content over quantity. The best way to provide quality content is to create longer form content using specific headings and markers throughout your text. Allowing readers to skim through what you have created and find solutions to the specific problems they are trying to solve.

Starting With A New SEO Adelaide Strategy

The second step in creating amazing content to rank well and become SEO Adelaide friendly is to use the Pillar Page and Topic Cluster strategy.

Topic Clusters Create SEO Adelaide Friendly Content

Creating topic clusters ensures that your site content is organised in a user-friendly way. A topic cluster is simply a series of blogs that focus on one main idea. To answer questions and solve problems for your target audience you create a list of topics that answer similar problems. Using conversational long-tail keywords, you link each piece of content together to answer as many questions as possible.

Creating topic clusters help more pages to rank in Google because you are giving searchers better solutions to their problems.

The way most blogs are structured cause a silo effect, where each blog is optimised for one keyword. Like everything else, this was a great plan, until it wasn’t!

Once a new SEO strategy was highlighted it became easier to see the problems with our old SEO Adelaide strategies.

Blogs were unorganised

Content that was not user-friendly

Each blog URL was competing against one another in search engine ranks

Ability to answer only one or two aspects of your target markets problems

Pillar Pages Create SEO Adelaide Friendly Organisation

A pillar page is a piece of content that covers a single topic without going into too much detail about the elements you write about. This piece of content should focus on conversion.

Once you have created the pillar page of content, you link all subtopics created from your topic cluster and link them from the pillar page. These content pieces should be focussed on driving traffic to your website. And they need to link from the pillar page and back to the pillar page.

There is only one way to plan and execute a Pillar Page and Topic Cluster strategy into your content creation process – ORGANISATION!

The 8 Step SEO Adelaide Content Strategy Approach

Conduct Keyword research, market research and industry research that you might like to base your content on.

Plan all your content topics for the year

Every month or two plan your pillar page content and topic cluster content in detail.

Create the content for your Pillar Page to give you more insight into what other potential sub-topic content you will need to write.

Audit all the content you have already created and analyse to determine if it answers any questions related to your focus topic

Create all the content for your topic cluster and plan to publish them according to your schedule

Topic cluster content gets published first and then your Pillar Page that links all of the content together. (Note: If you already have an amazing amount of content on your site you may only need to create the pillar page and then link to existing blogs. This is why a content audit is essential).

Within your scheduling calendar include any social promotion that you would like to include for this.

Pillar Page Content Structure

Creating an amazing Pillar Content Structure can be a little bit daunting when you first start. But, following the procedure like a checklist will make the ride smoother.

Buyer Persona Problems

To determine what your first pillar page content topic should be list all the problems or questions that your buyer persona(s) have. The content idea should come to you quickly when you understand what your audience’s problems are.

If you can’t see an area of content to write about from your audience’s problems, there is probably a lack of knowledge about your Buyer Personas. So you should go back to the drawing board and create these again.

Group Like Problems Together

Once you have identified the biggest problems that your audience faces, group them in like categories. From here you can refine the overarching topic for your pillar page content.

Search for Subtopic Ideas

Once you have determined your Pillar Page Content topic, develop a range of subtopic ideas that fit appropriately under the umbrella of the Pillar Page Content Topic.

For example, if your Pillar Page relates to Energy Bills, then subtopic ideas could address the different issues relating to energy. Topics such as more efficient heating, the pros and cons of solar panels, lower cost cooling, best insulation alternatives etc.

Your content calendar can then be created based on offering solutions to the many problems your potential customers face in their pursuit of lower energy bills.

The key point to note here is that we are not creating content for search engines but rather, content that addresses people’s problems. This is your primary goal, and where appropriate use keyword phrases and conversational questions for on-page SEO.

Keywords still play an important part in creating and optimising your content. Once you have researched the conversational questions and long-tail keywords that your target audience is using implement these in your:

URL

Page Title

Headings

Sub Headings

Body Text

Meta Descriptions

Tags

Changing Your SEO Adelaide Strategy

People are treating Google like a person more and more every day by asking search engines questions relating to problems they would like solved.

So, it makes sense to work with Google by understanding these questions and creating content that helps answer them.

Google is smart enough, thanks to machine learning, to know how well you are answering questions. So helping Google present solutions to problems will result in better search engine ranking.

In summary, SEO Adelaide friendly content involves a shift in mindset. Go from siloed Google and Keyword specific content to content that solves problems. Content that answers questions. And content that provides solutions.

There are many SEO services in Adelaide that claim to be able to increase your search engine ranking overnight. The team at Baker Marketing hope after reading this blog, you feel more confident about optimising your content and website either by yourself, with Baker Marketing, or with any Adelaide SEO agency that you choose.

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